Atlanta Falcons: Breakdown & grades for Desmond Ridder's 4 starts last season

Breakdown and grades for each of Desmond Ridder's four starts as the Atlanta Falcons in 2022

Without a doubt, 2022 was a very interesting year for the Atlanta Falcons. After the conclusion of the 2021 season, there was a report that the Falcons would stick with Matt Ryan as their starting quarterback.

That seemed like the case until the Texans started to seriously shop Deshaun Watson and rumors swirled about the Falcons being heavily interested. Ultimately, they ran Ryan out of town and had to look elsewhere for a starting quarterback.

They almost immediately landed on Marcus Mariota but they also put a little pressure on him when they used one of their third-round picks on Cincinnati QB Desmond Ridder.

Mariota was the starting quarterback for much of the 2022 season. Fans were clearly done with him before Arthur Smith was. Smith ended up pulling the plug on Mariota during the Falcons' week 14 bye week and named Desmond Ridder the starter.

Ridder started his career by traveling to New Orleans and Baltimore before finishing up his rookie season by hosting the Cardinals and Buccaneers. Now the pressure is on Ridder as he enters the 2023 season as the leader of the offense.

I went back and watched all four of his starts and here is my breakdown of what I saw from the then-rookie QB and the composite grades I gave him in each start.